Adding distortion to clean guitars

[Superhuman]

I'm a newbie here so please don't laugh if this is a bad idea... I've had success DI'ing my Triaxis so please don't recommend micing up an amp or stack that I don't have! I've ben playing for a long time so I know how technique affects clean to distorted recordings.

I use a Boss GT-Pro and a Mesa Boogie Triaxis with a Mesa Simul Class 2:90 to get my guitar tones. The biggest problem I find recording is that the tone itself is destructive in so far as you can't really do that much to change the root tone after you've recorded a take. With the GT-Pro it's possible to set up a nice fat distorted effects driven lead tone straight out of the studio monitors with a USB before the effects chain straight to ProTools/SX3. I play instrumentals with a lot of really fast lead so there are often punch ins and edits, I've always found it a lot easier to edit clean guitar tracks than distorted. Being able to play with the distortion on in the monitors is important to get the correct picking attack and levels of muting and harmonics but it would be great to be able to experiment with distortion from scratch over a clean track.
Is it possible to edit the track to perfection then route it back through the GT-Pro/Triaxis to add the effects/distortions etc? For me, distortion is like any other effect in the mix that you want to be able to revise and tweak during the mixing process. Can this be done? If so what advice or suggestions would you have for a newbie?? I have studio time booked for next week and I'm thinking that if it can be done, I'd like to simultaneously record a clean track alongside each dirty track (dirty for guides), edit them in tandem, then export all of the clean tracks to a fresh mix and work on the tones at my own leisure over time - basically use the studio time for get the takes right - then go back at a later date to mix the tones that I will have had weeks to experiment with.
Any helpful advice is much appreciate,
Thanks!

[tarnationsauce2]

Yes. It's normally called re-amping if you do the same with a guitar amp.
Otherwise, you're basically using an outboard "fx" processor.
It's a quite common procedure.
Just keep in mind every time you do so you add a few dB to the noise floor, and add any quantization error, etc. from D/A - A/D conversion. That's all dependant on the quality of your converters.
Unless your outboard effects has digital I/O and you properly utilize them.

[silentman]

I have a cheap Morley A/B/Y pedal that I use in my home studio. I plug my guitar into the input and the A channel goes to my Podxt Live and the B channel goes to a DI box. I record the Pod and the clean signal at the same time and then go back with Amplitube and use the clean track as my main guitar track. I'll also keep the Pod track to use if I end up liking the effect better than anything I can generate in Amplitube. If you are going to do this in the studio I would suggest getting the best A/B/Y pedal that you can find. Usually the more expensive one's are the best, but not always. If you are going to be running it as "A and B" all of the time then the Morley will do the job. If you are going to ever use it in a live setting you will want a better one because the Morley pops when you switch channels in and out. Also, keep in mind that if you use both recorded tracks at the same time there will be a slight phase shift and the track you record through your outboard processor may slightly lag your clean track. It will really depend upon the latency of the system you are recording into.

-JV

[Superhuman]

Cool, I was told that it couldnt be done - that it would sound totaly unnatural. I'll be playing through an Apogee AD8000 in the studio so there shouldnt be a problem there re conversion. All I need to do at home then is tweak the tones untill I'm happ, then go back into the studio and run the clean back through the Apogee through the effects chain and EQ them in the mix. Thanks for the advice!

[Superhuman]

Originally Posted by silentman

I have a cheap Morley A/B/Y pedal that I use in my home studio. I plug my guitar into the input and the A channel goes to my Podxt Live and the B channel goes to a DI box. I record the Pod and the clean signal at the same time and then go back with Amplitube and use the clean track as my main guitar track. I'll also keep the Pod track to use if I end up liking the effect better than anything I can generate in Amplitube. If you are going to do this in the studio I would suggest getting the best A/B/Y pedal that you can find. Usually the more expensive one's are the best, but not always. If you are going to be running it as "A and B" all of the time then the Morley will do the job. If you are going to ever use it in a live setting you will want a better one because the Morley pops when you switch channels in and out. Also, keep in mind that if you use both recorded tracks at the same time there will be a slight phase shift and the track you record through your outboard processor may slightly lag your clean track. It will really depend upon the latency of the system you are recording into.

-JV

Thanks for that, I've been playing guitar for well over 10 years but have never heard of and A/B/Y box! Sounds like just the ticket, with the USB inut onfront of the signal chain there probably should'nt be any conversion problems with quant etc. I'll check out the Morley seeing as I don't play live. Thans again.

[Fletcher]

You have a few things going on... first, it seems that you're buying the concept that you can get a great guitar sound without speakers. You can get good ones, but not great ones.

I'm in the middle of doing a live recording with Johnny A where we're recording all the guitars "direct"... well, they're all direct except for the mic I have on the stage that picks up the guitar sound regurgitated back to Johnny through the monitors and the room mics... but other than that it's all direct from a couple of Marshall heads and JMP-1's [the fact of the matter is that the direct sounds, while good, are still too 2 dimensional and the DI line off the guitar will be augmented with some "re-amp"ed sounds on the stuff I end up mixing].

Same with Ty Tabor [King's X]. He was going "direct" through Line 6 crap for years. When I was working with Michael Wagener on the last King's X album we [mostly Michael] ended that setup in a hurry... we just couldn't get the proper depth to the tone without moving some air.

In your case, I would suggest that you record the guitar "direct" before whatever amp processes you might be using [even real amps with 'speaker emulator' things end up sounding a little flatter than is usually desirable]... go back and do punches/edits [whatever... but be very careful NOT to edit out all the soul of a performance in an effort to create a 'technically perfect' performance... that danger is VERY real... watch out for that trap if you don't want to end up sounding like a keyboard player!!!!]... then run the direct signal you recorded back into an amp with speakers... dial in the tone(s) you require for your music and record them.

DI'ed amp tones are all well and good for playing in the control room [etc.] but in my world, I have never heard them really be good enough for released product.

As always, YMMV... best of luck with it.